My son wants a computer. I am in trouble.

My 8 year old wants a PC that can connect to his school's portal, so he can chat with friends and... last but not least.. can plya Minecraft. All I know about computers is you turn the power on and that's that. Anybody have advice about computer shopping? Not too high a budget, but my wife and I are not good at computer shopping, power, memory, speeds, hertzing, etc..

Pretty much anything can run Minecraft. Do you want a laptop or a desktop? You can probably find something 'ok' for $500, but $800 will be much better and last for a while.

Is it necessary to be a PC? iPads (or Android equivalent) should be able to do all of the things you mentioned. Unless he wants to do modded Minecraft, which would need the Java Minecraft client.

He does want to start modding. The desktop would be a good solution, not sure about a laptop because, well, he's 8

A laptop is probably the way to go nowadays. You can get one that'll perform just fine for your needs real cheap.

This one from BestBuy is perfectly fine for Minecraft at $230, and you can perk it up quite a bit by tossing a $30 SSD in there, though that will require copying your Windows partition, which takes a bit of knowledge and ideally another computer (so find a friend who knows how to do that).

You'll end up with a perfectly cromulent system there, with everything you need, for $260 plus tax. Doesn't get much cheaper than that.

Serengeti wrote:

A laptop is probably the way to go nowadays. You can get one that'll perform just fine for your needs real cheap.

This one from BestBuy is perfectly fine for Minecraft at $230, and you can perk it up quite a bit by tossing a $30 SSD in there, though that will require copying your Windows partition, which takes a bit of knowledge and ideally another computer (so find a friend who knows how to do that).

You'll end up with a perfectly cromulent system there, with everything you need, for $260 plus tax. Doesn't get much cheaper than that.

Though it used to play on anything, the latest Minecraft patches will struggle on a Radeon R4 but will be playable on Low as long as it's single player. (I know this because my son has tried playing on a very similar laptop.)

And depending on how many mods he & his friends will be using, 4GB memory might be on the tight side. Eight is enough, 16GB is ideal.

In general, a laptop will be more expensive for a given performance level, and much less reliable. Particularly for an 8-year-old, I'm not sure a laptop would be a very good solution. And cheap laptops are built to very low standards, so I think the chance of him breaking it would be very high. (I'd worry about me breaking most cheapies, never mind a kid.)

Desktops seem dull in comparison, but they rarely break, and the only parts routinely exposed to kidlet wear and tear are the keyboard and mouse, either of which can be replaced cheaply if necessary. You also have the advantage of being able to supervise computer use, which is probably a good idea in the age of the Internet. Laptops can be used anywhere, but set a desktop up in the living room and you can be fairly sure it'll be used in appropriate ways.

As far as sizing the system goes: Minecraft is best with a discrete video card. It doesn't need a monster, something cheapish is fine, but the built-in CPU graphics are usually weak enough to be a noticeable performance problem. In other words, you don't want bottom-dollar crap. Going at least one step up from there would be a good idea.

One possible idea would be a used gamer desktop of some kind. There's lots of upgrades happening this year, so you might be able to find something decent for a reasonable price, particularly if you're not in a big hurry.

Max, do you have a Costco membership? If so, I would peruse their desktops and see what falls in your budget that has a dedicated video card (look for NVidia or AMD Radeon branding). Post it back here if you want an opinion before pulling the trigger.

Otherwise I would just buy a Dell desktop and you have a warranty. Something like this for $900 or if you want cheaper this one is $600 and should be fine for him from 8-12 years old. They come with keyboard and mouse, and you'll have to find a monitor yourself. You can get cheap / free used ones from Craigslist.

You could also go the Craigslist route for the desktop and you could find something decent in the $300-400 range probably depending on your local market. It will be a bit more risky of course of getting bad hardware and you'd have no warranty but there can be deals to be found. With your situation I would just buy a new one from a store / Dell and be confident it works out of the box and you have support if you need it.